Where Did We Go Wrong?

I thought we had it all planned out. We bought a bigger vehicle, researched options, bought a huge map for the bedroom. Jay tagged every historical site, museum, road side attraction and other spot of interest we might want to see. We started booking hotels and Air BnB’s. It all seemed to be working. We took a practice trip to Florida and Disneyworld to practice packing the van. We measured, bought tubs, made lists. And……

It didn’t work.

Packing your car for 6 people is a puzzle. We bought tubs, labeled them, thought through everything we would need. And then stuff started piling up in the “to go” pile. To add to the chaos, we decided to rent our house so now we were not only packing a car, we were packing and storing the entire house.

I would not recommend this.

The last night in town, we started filling the tubs and putting them in the van. 10 days of clothes, pillows, blankets, dog crate, ice chest, some kitchen stuff, essential oils, supplements……. You get the idea. We have a pod on top of the car but there was no way. I thinned it out and sent ¼ to the storage and still there was no room for everyone to sit. The next day we pulled it all out, got rid of the tubs and moved to duffels for most things and repacked. Thinned out another layer and got it all in, but it still was not pretty. Our goal was to have very little in the cab of the van so people had leg room and could get in and out fairly easily. Once we dropped off the hamster, it got better but it is definitely a work in progress. Jay looked at me and said, “Where did we go wrong?”

Exactly! It sounded so good on paper.

So, that was our first hiccup on the trip and I am sure there will be more. It is still hard to find things but at each stop I unpack, repack, and reorganize. I brought my label maker, so I’ll get it figured out and cleaned up. Probably will have to do another culling and mail stuff home, but we’ll get this streamlined.

There is always going to be a bump or an issue you have to work around. This is another thing we can teach our kids on this trip. You can focus on the problem, or on the solution. And getting them involved in finding the solution is kind of excellent. I know making a trip like this excites and scares most people when they consider it. Maybe we can work through the hiccups for you.